


Echoes of Laughter

by missema



Series: Allyse Shepard, Space Cadet [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan Alenko is coping with Allyse Shepard's death, months later.  Darkness is giving way to light as he works at living again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes of Laughter

"I thought you might have had a crush on your CO or something, the way you always went on about her, but I didn't realize it was so serious.  I'm so sorry, man."    
  
Kaidan rereads the line in the email he'd received from his friend Micah, a marine in the Fifth Fleet that barely survived the battle of the Citadel.  They've talked about the battle a few times, getting suitably drunk each time as they tried to drown out memories that would never die, an endless fight relived in nightmares.  Rebuilt pubs and bars on the Presidium have become their refuge whenever they meet up, places where they can drink and talk in low voices, places witness to Kaidan's private anguish.  The taut control he's cultivated over the years unravels a little more every time he's there, there are too many ghosts in the Citadel, and since he went to Ilos, Kaidan knows that their battle wasn't the first.  
  
But Micah is talking about Allyse, because Kaidan can't stop talking about her.  It's been months, and for a while he was too upset, too devastatingly sad to open up to anyone besides his parents and the counselor assigned to him by the Alliance.  Little by little, he's told his friends, but Micah knows more than anyone else.  
  
"I never met her, you know that, or she'd have been dating me."   
  
Despite his grief, Kaidan actually laughed at that line when he read it.  Micah was already married, his friend happily entwined with a civilian.  Neither one of them had been anything great at dating or maintaining relationships, but a few years back on the Earth, Micah literally bumped into his wife.  The two spent his whole shore leave talking, walking around Vancouver and going out.  He was sure that his friend had squeezed a whole courtship into a few days, and hadn't been surprised a year later when they got married.  
  
"But I will miss her, and the galaxy grieves with you.  She was the best of us, and I'm all broken up again now that I know she was yours."  
  
Allyse was his, and he was hers.  Recently, there had been days where he hadn't woken up bogged down with misery, wishing for life that couldn't happen, but he never let himself forget.  Memory was a fickle beast and sometimes Kaidan would be scared to death that he might not recall every precious detail, that one day he wouldn't be able to summon the details of how she looked when she slept or the timbre of her voice.  He worked at remembering, at writing it down, committing the details to something more permanent than memory, and he put his thoughts in with the collected bits of her life he'd inherited.  
  
Then he put them on a shelf.  
  
"Take all the time you need, man.  Kaidan, seriously, I really mean it.  I don't know what I'd do if I lost Marie, so whenever you need an ear, I'm here."  
  
But he's had time, and he's been working through it.  Talking to his friends about her, telling them the truth was just another step in coping, extracting the sadness so that only the best parts remain.  He was private by nature, and so sharing, being open about his loss was the most difficult part for him and he hadn't been able to before.  His duties had resumed, he'd continued his grief counseling, and spoke regularly to his mother, but he hadn't been able to face telling his handful of close friends about Allyse, not until recently.  
  
Talking about her made him feel oddly exposed, even when speaking about her to close friends.  With every burden shared, he felt as if he lost a piece of Allyse, that the well-meaning intentions of everyone that wanted him to open up caused him to lose a little more of what he loved.  It was his instinct to hold it tight to himself, to hoard the memories of what he had, hold onto all he had left of Allyse.  But that wasn't right, it would just cause him to delve into those recollections for comfort, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to resist the urge to live within them.  It was too tempting, a fantasy he didn't want to indulge or explore.  
  
Kaidan switched off his email and closed his eyes, laying back against his cot.  In his mind, he composed a response to Micah, and thought about what to say about Allyse.  
  
There were so many things that he couldn't really describe, the way she made him feel when she smiled at him, the tilt of her hips when she walked, how she'd felt on top of him.  Those things were too private to share, for his mind alone.  He would say that he missed her laugh, that she had the most expressive face, laughter making her eyes dance and shine, crinkling with merriment, anger making those same eyes flash, nostrils flared.  Determination gave her a deadly, serious air about her, jaw squared as she worked, and he missed every expression, but mostly the laughter.  In his mind he could hear her, just as she'd been after they'd defeated Saren.  
  
  "I thought I'd lost you, Allyse."  Kaidan admitted in a strained voice, smoke and emotion strangling his vocal chords, tears filling his burning, aching eyes as she came stumbling out of the smoldering wreckage.  Destruction lay in every direction, fragments of the Citadel burning and destroyed, but her eyes danced with amusement as she looked over at Kaidan.  
  
 "Takes more than a Reaper to kill me, Kaidan."  She said, coughing slightly as she spoke.  And then she did laugh, the exhausted, exhilarated sound rising above all the noise, all heads in the vicinity turning towards her as it echoed around them.   
  
He really missed her laugh.


End file.
